Stress Analysis of an Aircraft Fuselage with and without Portholes using CAD/CAE Process

Abstract

The airline industry has been marked by numerous incidents. One of the first, who accompanied the start of operation of the first airliners with jet engines, was directly related to the portholes. Indeed, the banal form of the windows was the source of stress concentrations, which combined with the appearance of micro cracks, caused the explosion in flight of the unit. Since that time, all aircraft openings receive special attention in order to control and reduce their impact on the aircraft structure. In this paper we focus on the representation and quantification of stress concentrations at the windows of a regional jet flying at 40000 feet. To do this, we use a numerical method, similar to what is done at major aircraft manufacturers. The Patran/Nastran software will be used the finite element software to complete our goals.